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Ezul leaned into Cordelia. “My brother is one of the best scientists Aragnok has to offer. His creation of teleportation devices was so advanced that he was given his own laboratory from our government in the hopes that his creativity would only grow with the provision of unlimited resources.”
Cordelia stiffened. “Teleportation devices? Like the keys they use in The Harvest Games?” Ezul’s brother had created those damn things?
Curiosity peaked, Cordelia couldn’t help but scoot a little closer, excited to hear more.
“They are one and the same,” Cazar explained. “I never expected them to be used so arbitrarily.”
“What did you make them for then, if not The Games?”
Cazar shrugged sheepishly. “All of my brothers are warriors. I built it with the intent to save them from certain death on the battlefield. A fail-safe to guarantee they would make it home.”
That was ridiculously sweet, and it just went to show how wonderful Ezul and his entire family were… Minus the space pirate, it seemed.
“You did that for your brothers?” She nudged Ezul. “You’re lucky to have a family like this.”
“I am,” Ezul agreed.
Cazar cleared his throat shyly. “Sahin and Ezul mentioned you and Delilah may be interested in seeing them. I have brought a prototype with me.”
“Really?” It was impossible to keep the excitement out of her voice, so she didn’t even bother trying. “Can I see it?”
“You can’t be serious,” Cordelia asked loudly, staring at the object in Cazar’s hand.
They’d only just entered into the living room, with Ezul’s family and Delilah all gathered inside, and Cordelia was having a horrible time keeping a straight face as she stared at the small metalkey.
“I can assure you, this was the object you needed to find,” Cazar told her proudly, oblivious to the way Delilah’s eyes widened in shock. She choked on her drink when he waved it around haphazardly.
Cordelia tilted her head to the side, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
“It doesn’t look like any key I’ve ever seen,” she responded amicably. She wasn’t lying. It definitely didn’t look like a key. It looked like a small sex toy.
Why was it so... phallic? And why the hell did it have a flared base?
She knew in the back of her mind that they probably didn’t associate it with a sex toy, mostly because Ezul, and she assumed other Aragnokans, had the bumps and the thicker shafts and all of that, so it wasn’t like they needed any additional help. Sex toys likely didn’t even exist in this world. But still…
But it looked like Cazar was holding a freaking vibrator.
Cordelia cleared her throat when Cazar deflated, upset that she wasn’t fawning over his sex toy key. “I had hoped you would be impressed,” Cazar muttered self-consciously.
“Oh!” Cordelia smiled, running a hand through her hair to stall for a response. “I am impressed! I just didn’t think it would look like that.”
“How does it work?” Delilah stared at it curiously. Sahin shifted closer to her, a tendril wrapping around her throat until she laughed, touching the tip affectionately.
Cazar perked up at the question, flashing a set of razor-sharp teeth. He looked a lot like his brothers at that moment, except he was lacking any unusually colored veins or markings.
“Each key can only be used once, and only by one person. As I mentioned earlier, it’s meant as a quick extraction from a dangerous situation. I had so many ideas aside from just helping my brothers. I want to help everyone. A world being terraformed becomes unstable, risking collapse; a ship in space stops working… There are so many ways this device can help us,” Cazar told them all, his voice rising in excitement.
“But we do not use it for those purposes,” Ezul murmured in Cordelia’s ear, nipping at her lobe playfully.
Cazar sighed. “No, we do not. Each portal takes years to perfect, and the power within it can only be harnessed once before it is consumed.”
“And it costs hundreds of thousands of credits,” Jakkar commented from across the room before returning to his conversation with Kylok. Both men were seated in a corner, talking quietly amongst themselves.
Jakkar laughed at something Kylok murmured to him while the rest of them were listening to Cazar go on, passionately discussing the other marvels of science that went into making the portal.
Everything was all... so normal, just the entire atmosphere with Ezul’s family that Cordelia felt emotion clogging her throat.
She’d never in a million years thought she’d feel like she was part of another family again, and yet here she was. At a family gathering discussing vibrator keys.
